Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait. I finally got myself to do this post after postponing it for almost two weeks. I’ve been extremely lazy with Topic “Otaku” recently and also had tons of homework/tests/midterms at school too. I’ll make sure I do a post every two weeks or so as I mentioned before. OK, onward to the post!

K-On!! (season two) was another great season, lasting 26 episodes. I thought it only had 13 episodes like the first season at first, so when the 14th episode came out (and me also noticing that was no sign of an end yet) I was like confused, checked online and was extremely happy that the second season was going to be twice as long as the first. Anyways here is a quick synopisis from MAL.net:

“It’s the final year of high school for Yui Hirasawa, Ritsu Tainaka, Mio Akiyama, and Tsumugi Kotobuki, the founding members of the Light Music Club. Together with their junior member, Azusa Nakano, they spend their days after school in the music room enjoying tea and sweets and practicing music. Amidst band practice, preparations for the new student orientation performance, scouting for new members, and student responsibilities, they still have time for “After School Tea Time”.” – Just like in Lucky Star, there is no real plot of the series, just the everyday normal things they do as a high school light music club.

I love this series a lot because of the humor and the emotion of having close friends and the feeling of having the leave them behind. I can’t remember any episode of this season that I did not laugh through. The antics that the group went through during were so enjoyable to watch. There was just one episode that I wasn’t too keen on which was episode 4 because they were acting too childish in my opinion for it to be funny. Other than that, it was a great watch every week. My favorite episodes are probably what others like too, number 20 and 24. In episode 20, the group performs in their last school festival with a couple of new songs, my favorite U&I which is a song written by Yui about her younger sister Ui. I had tears after they performed while they were crying too. When episode 24 came around, which is where the series’s story ends, I was expecting to cry again as well because I knew it was going to end in a big way. Throughout the entire episode, I never did cry but I had a bittersweet feeling inside of me, the same feeling I had on my day of High School graduation. The final song for Azusa really was the perfect way to bring K-On!! to an end. The manga also has ended as well so the main story is already completed. Even with “The End” written all over the series, it doesn’t mean KyoAni is done with it yet. At the end of episode 26, it was announced that a K-On! film will be made which I think is great. There is no word yet about what it may be about, but some think it will be showing the group achieving their ultimate dream, Budokan.

K-On!! is known for their music which is very catchy with some being emotional as well. I will admit that the OPs (Go! Go! Maniac and Utauyo!! Miracle) for this season were a bit…. different from the very popular Cagayake! Girls OP from the first season, but over time I got to like them. The EDs were cooler than the OPs as expected, Listen! was like a bit old school while No, Thank You! took the cake for my favorite ED song. There were a few insert songs that were in the anime like Pure Pure Heart, Gohan wa Okazu, U&I, and Tenshi ni Fureta Yo!, my favorites being the last two mentioned. Just like the first season, I made a PMS (Piano Melodies Series) video for all my favorite songs from this season. Here it is:

Even though I’m usually a person who does not spend much money on stuff, I started buying a collecting some K-On! mini plushies. Currently have Mio, Azusa, and Ritsu in their school uniform with instruments. I really want Yui and Mugi to complete the set, and at only about 9$ per plushi I’m only putting about $50 into getting the band together. I could have gotten all of them at the same time at one point, but I wasn’t thinking of getting them all at the time. Here is a Photo of the K-On! plushi key-chains I saw at the JPN Store in Japantown SF. I still would want to get an Azusa Nendroid though.

Since K-On!! ended I’ve been wondering what will be KyoAni’s next anime will be, since it seems that any anime they make becomes quite popular. Just check out Kyoto Animation’s Wikipedia page, I bet you recognize most of these titles. It looks like their next anime will be Nichijou, another manga adapted comedy series being animated. I never heard of it before looking it up, but it’s another no real plot comedy probably just like Lucky Star and K-On!, this time with a twist. Synopsis from MAL.net: “While the title suggests a story of simple, everyday school life, the contents are more the opposite. The setting is a strange school where you may see the principal wrestle a deer or a robot’s arm hide a rollcake. However there are still normal stories, like making a card castle or taking a test you didn’t study for.” While it sounds a bit sketchy to me, I’ll probably check it out because KyoAni has not failed in bringing popular anime to the masses… yet.

For the people who watched and followed K-On! through these two years, its memory will live on in our hearts. It’s a bit sad that future people who enter into the anime watching world may not ever hear of this amazing series, but I’m sure that K-On!’s legacy of comedy and close friendship will not fade. I hope to share my memories of K-On! to future generations to come to show how you don’t always need violence and drama to have such a simple but great series.

I’ve been planning to do some major work on connecting with other similar blogs to help promote my website and others but have been putting it off so much. Finally got myself to start today.

Networking for me is a way to connect to others with similar interests to myself, and for others who read my blog to discover others just like me to create a community of like-minded people around the world. I’ve always been interested in meeting people who has similar interests as me, though it’s more common sense that most if not all people seek others in that way as well. One blogger in particular that has created an online “Japan Enthusiast” community that is growing everyday that I always mention in my posts is Danny Choo. His simple day-to-day posts of his life in Japan brings many people together online to connect to each other to discuss Japan related topics and to create relationships between reader and reader around the world. It’s nice to think that in this day and age that we can communicate with many people not just around where we live, but halfway around the world in places that we have never seen or heard of. This is the power of what we call the internet.

What I’m planning to do is go around on the internet and try to create “links” with other bloggers such as myself to become part of the Japan Culture Online Community (that’s what I call it). If you’re reading my blog and like it and have a blog that is about anything Japan and want to exchange links to promote networking, send me a message and I will respond ASAP, within six hours. Thank you!